tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307Wed, 29 Jul 2015 20:13:47 +0000AW AnnouncementswatercolorsFrench architectureacting badlyChinoiserieManhattanVersaillesCentral ParkCommissionsLouis XIVParisclassicismsymbolismAmazing GraceLibretto GroupSunday SpotlightTasteEgyptPavilionsArticlesFolliesNote cardsColumnsLouis XVPalladioVitruviusgeometrymythporcelaintable lanternsADAncient GreeceFrench RevolutionJean-Baptiste ColbertMarie-AntoinetteSaqqaradesignfreemasonrymemorialsobelisksArchitectural AlphabetBerniniChanteloupContemporary politicsFrancophiliaGabrielGalignaniLabyrinthsLedouxMichelangeloRussiaSumerSwagTentsWashington DCfontsrealitythe MetAwardsCharles RyskampChelsea Flower ShowChristopher WrenCorinthianDoricEiffel TowerEisenhowerEnglish measuresEye of HorusFibonacciFlorenceFranco Maria RicciFrank GehryFuturaGilgameshGuard pavilionsImhotepIonicJohn LennonJubileeMarlyMartin Luther King Jr.Metric systemNeanderthal extinctionNicolas FouquetPeleş CastlePotockiSan LorenzoSandsShakespeareSt-CyrSt. PetersburgTemple of SolomonVaux-le-VicomteWorld of InteriorsbirdcagesNOTED<i>@ Architectural Watercolors</i>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)Blogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-5512709425717680355Thu, 04 Jun 2015 20:45:00 +00002015-06-06T03:46:38.917+02:00ManhattanThe Frick garden is saved<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/davisbrody_frickcollection_elevation_phase04_060514_2000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://nyoobserver.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/davisbrody_frickcollection_elevation_phase04_060514_2000.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />Wonderful news for all who love the unique ambiance of The Frick Collection and its delightful Russell Page garden: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/nyregion/frick-museum-abandons-contested-renovation-plan.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss&amp;_r=0" target="_blank">The museum has announced today </a>that it is abandoning its ambitious expansion plans, designed by Davis Brody Bond. The additions would have subsumed Page's elegant garden beneath a massive, six-story-plus addition (<i>seen to the right of the entry in the above rendering</i>) that also would have overwhelmed the original two-story, Louis XVI-style Frick residence, the heart of the museum, and left it a mere appendage.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53d6b68ae4b01cdbaa06f1df/t/53fc925ae4b0f0206f642f4a/1409061467226/l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53d6b68ae4b01cdbaa06f1df/t/53fc925ae4b0f0206f642f4a/1409061467226/l.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />The press release states that the Frick will regroup and develop a new expansion plan, and that the second-floor<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>once family rooms but today executive offices<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>will be converted to exhibition space. Having visited and dined in these rooms several times, we can attest that they will make excellent additions to the museum's exhibition space, though the executive staff will lose a magnificent perk and be forced from the old Frick residence.<br /><br />The statement reads: <br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>The Frick remains committed to furthering its mission by attaining its goals, among them having additional space for the display of works of art, including galleries on the historic second floor of the mansion, dedicated classrooms for education programs, updated facilities for the care of our art and research collections, and better public access between the museum and the Frick Art Reference Library. We also plan to improve visitor amenities in general while offering equal access for visitors with disabilities. At the same time, preserving the unique residential character and intimate scale of the Frick will remain our top priority.</i></blockquote><br />Well, no one can argue with that<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>at least until we see the new plans. Part of the solution should be to rein in ambitions and ponder how best to enhance the Frick while ensuring that it remains what it is<span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>the best small museum in the world, with an accent on <i>small</i>. Does the Frick truly need to expand both its mandate and its facilities to so great an extent as first proposed? Or will expansion destroy this unique <i>house </i>museum? After all, the Frick is a house, albeit a grand one, and to ensure success in this venture, those guiding it must not lose sight of that fundamental, defining fact. Logic and moderation counsel that the Frick should maximize its existing assets, purchase or lease administration space adjacent to the property and seek creative and judicious rationalization of the built fabric it already has. <br /><br />In the meantime, we can all rejoice that Page's oasis of verdant civilization has been spared from New York's relentless redevelopment mania. The Frick is unique and should be thoughtfully preserved; after all, what other building in New York can boast its own front yard bordering Fifth Avenue and Central Park? <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Henry_C_Frick_House_009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Henry_C_Frick_House_009.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-fricks-garden-is-saved.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-3026484557379279017Tue, 19 May 2015 11:22:00 +00002015-05-19T15:56:14.507+02:00Chelsea Flower ShowChelsea Flower Show: Clone wars & that '50s vibe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chatsworthnew_3309503k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chatsworthnew_3309503k.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />The winning designs of the 2015 Chelsea Flower Show have been announced, and Dan Pearson's preternaturally natural recreation of a slice of woodland at Chatsworth (<i>above, from the UK's </i><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelseaflowershow/" target="_blank">Telegraph</a>)&nbsp; has won Best in Show. Another microplot of meticulously contrived virtual reality,&nbsp; James Bassen's Perfumer's Garden in Grasse (<i>below</i>), was awarded a gold medal.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-perfumersg_3309117k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-perfumersg_3309117k.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></div><br />Both gardens are stunning recreations, kudos to both design teams for jaw-droppingly flawless execution,&nbsp; especially Bassen, whose garden is particularly lyrical. But the thought occurs, Should one really call them gardens? They seem more like extraordinary clones, the Dolly the sheep of garden design. They also remind one of the current hyper-realist waxwork fixation in contemporary art, exemplified by artists such as the Japanese photographer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshi_Sugimoto" target="_blank">Hiroshi Sugimoto</a>, who fashions remarkably lifelike wax effigies of historical figures and then photographs them in "portraits" (<i>below, HRH Princess Diana, in wax</i>).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://jbxtrjb.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/diana-princess-of-wales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://jbxtrjb.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/diana-princess-of-wales.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br />One frankly designed garden, an elegant chessboard based on de Stijl geometries by Marcus Burnett, may not have been particularly innovative but it was so expertly balanced and flawlessly executed that it also won a gold medal. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-telegraph_3309025k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-telegraph_3309025k.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></div><br />Unsurprisingly, with our current hipster-driven fixation upon elevating nostalgia for days of future past into a cultural obsession, a number of winning designs seem to have come straight from the well-thumbed pages of that postwar horticultural bible, <i>America's Garden Book</i>, specifically the chapter on contemporary garden design from the iconic 1958 edition. Bush-Brown's Eisenhower-era masterpiece encapsulated the heady design moment when America discovered pebble-encrusted concrete pavers, the Southwest, and redwood plank.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://img1.etsystatic.com/036/1/7322507/il_340x270.607365783_rzs9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="254" src="https://img1.etsystatic.com/036/1/7322507/il_340x270.607365783_rzs9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Below, gold-medal winning gardens by Harry and David Rich, Adam Frost, and Chris Beardshaw.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03306/Chelsea_Flower_Sho_3306089k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03306/Chelsea_Flower_Sho_3306089k.jpg" height="248" width="400" />&nbsp;</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-homebase_3309013k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03309/chelsea-homebase_3309013k.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03308/chelsea-morganstan_3308958k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03308/chelsea-morganstan_3308958k.jpg" height="248" width="400" />&nbsp;</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For complete coverage, we'd highly recommend a visit to the website of the UK's <i>Telegraph, </i>which has devoted an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/chelseaflowershow/" target="_blank">entire section</a> to the Chelsea Flower Show.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp; </div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2015/05/chelsea-flower-show-clone-wars-that-50s.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-2972451758298904608Sun, 17 May 2015 11:10:00 +00002015-05-17T13:10:43.316+02:00ArticlesChinoiserieFolliesLibretto GroupNote cardsWorld of InteriorsChinoiserie notecards in World of Interiors<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.hotels-in-czech.com/clfiles/news/big/20-cinsky-pavilon-zamek-vlasim.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hotels-in-czech.com/clfiles/news/big/20-cinsky-pavilon-zamek-vlasim.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div><br />In the better-late-than-never department, we would be remiss if we didn't note the March issue of <a href="http://www.worldofinteriors.co.uk/" target="_blank"><i>World of Interiors</i></a>, which featured <span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Aglae Auersperg's watercolors of her family's Chinese pavilion in the gardens at </span><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">Vlašim, a Bohemian estate in the modern-day Czech Republic. The pavilion (<i>above</i>) has been impeccably restored and the watercolors are atmospheric and charming, and the issue was, as usual, intriguing, informative and visually stunning.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1JCKM4h2ZQw/VVhydqRnhnI/AAAAAAAABnE/0fgK_-45Cbk/s1600/WoI_Mar2015x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="338" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1JCKM4h2ZQw/VVhydqRnhnI/AAAAAAAABnE/0fgK_-45Cbk/s400/WoI_Mar2015x.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION">The issue's<i> Inspiration</i> page featured our boxed <a href="http://architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/boxed-stationery/tea-house-cards/" target="_blank">Tea House silhouette notecards </a>and one of our folding cards reproducing our watercolor of the <a href="http://architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/chinoiseries/pagoda-rheinsberg/" target="_blank">Pagoda at Rheinsberg</a>, which once stood an extensive eighteenth-century folly garden created by Prince Heinrich of Prussia, brother of Frederick the Great. </span>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2015/05/chinoiserie-notecards-in-world-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-2283615786928596861Wed, 13 May 2015 13:36:00 +00002015-05-17T16:18:46.433+02:00AW AnnouncementsTasteRenovating a website today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://architecturalwatercolors.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AW_red2-194x200.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://architecturalwatercolors.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/AW_red2-194x200.png" height="200" width="193" /></a></div><br /><br />For those of you who manage your own websites, you know that overhauling them is a massive undertaking, and often requires you to rebuild the site from the ground up. We've just endured such a two-month-long process, which was the most thorough and extensive rebuild we've ever undertaken (actually every new renovation takes that title, truth be told), and are delighted first that the project is<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>at long last<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>finished, and that the new, expanded <a href="http://architecturalwatercolors.com/" target="_blank">AW.com </a>is purring along pretty much just as we envisioned it. We invite you to take a look and take it for a spin, and tell us what you think.<br /><br />We'll spare you the gory details, but the take-away from the experience, from someone who actually coded the first incarnaton of architecturalwatercolors.com in html back in the day, is that web design and coding have become as complicated and arcane as tensor calculus. Complicated, not complex, and comparable to Russian nesting dolls, with software nested in software, esthetically modded by themes, refined by plugins and apps and mapped across your server in a staggeringly vast tree of files residing in literally hundreds of folders. A mighty oak of php!<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ziP82swNcow/VVN-4pbbtJI/AAAAAAAABm0/0jg53KWgCL4/s1600/Wordpress%2Bincludes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ziP82swNcow/VVN-4pbbtJI/AAAAAAAABm0/0jg53KWgCL4/s400/Wordpress%2Bincludes.jpg" width="397" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wordpress includes</i>: indeed it does!</td></tr></tbody></table><br />One untoward result: all those hordes of code kiddies have been diligently polishing and elaborating all things php until it often requires a week of sleuthing to discover how to change a precoded line of text on what you naively thought was your own website to a phrase that suits <i>you</i>.<br /><br />Yes, that sort of complexity is the main drawback of the maturation of the web, but the result of the ongoing coding frenzy is that you can do some pretty amazing things with a webpage today<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>you can have parallax effects, fullscreen video headers, carrousel image galleries... Just about any sort of bell or whistle you can imagine, and someone's got a plugin that will enable it. In fact, you can do so much with webpages today that the pendulum has swung and there is now an outright rebellion against all those bells and whistles (ironically, driven by the very same web-centric cadre creating them) and clean, minimalist web design is all the rage.<br /><br />We've always been strong believers in clean, minimalist web design and were never fond of yesteryear's obsessions with shiny-glass buttons and later faux brushed aluminum, design trends which always seemed to us patently absurd. So we welcome the embrace of minimalism and simplicity, and the underlying acknowledgement that a webpage is indeed just that, with text and graphics frankly expressed. &nbsp; http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2015/05/aw-website-renovations.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-5171158934847812111Tue, 30 Dec 2014 10:46:00 +00002015-01-23T19:08:37.528+01:00Amazing GraceLibretto Grouptable lanternsShared holiday photos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b15Q-_M6rB4/VKKCL-AVt-I/AAAAAAAABlE/NelfUsoZXEQ/s1600/Tea%2BHouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b15Q-_M6rB4/VKKCL-AVt-I/AAAAAAAABlE/NelfUsoZXEQ/s1600/Tea%2BHouse.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>We rarely receive such delightful and unexpected messages as that which came to us on Christmas Eve from a customer in Fairfax, Virginia, who shared with us her photos of our Tea House (<i>above</i>) and Nutcracker Pavilion table lanterns in her home.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6OIpXiergBE/VKKCVLbRPII/AAAAAAAABlM/2i5xjertmPc/s1600/Nutcracker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6OIpXiergBE/VKKCVLbRPII/AAAAAAAABlM/2i5xjertmPc/s1600/Nutcracker.jpg" height="320" width="298" /></a></div><br /><br />They are so evocative that we requested to share them here, and she graciously accepted.<br /><br />Happy holidays and all the very best for the new year!<br /><br /><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/12/shared-holiday-photos.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-8949228601731578571Sun, 07 Dec 2014 11:37:00 +00002014-12-07T12:39:30.527+01:00AW AnnouncementsFrench architecturewatercolorsLecture and Master Class at the ICAA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYBGNNDi2Dg/VIQ6XwQbHPI/AAAAAAAABk0/A6-F6Wbo_pc/s1600/TentMonceauWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-GYBGNNDi2Dg/VIQ6XwQbHPI/AAAAAAAABk0/A6-F6Wbo_pc/s1600/TentMonceauWeb.jpg" height="242" width="400" /></a></div><br />We would be remiss if we did not mention our recent lecture at the ICAA, the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art in New York, entitled <a href="http://www.classicist.org/programs/courses/detail/pencil-and-brush-architectural-watercolors/" target="_blank"><i>Pencil and Brush: Architectural Watercolors</i></a>, held on the evening of the 23rd October. It was an illustrated lecture on the history of French classicism from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and we were delighted to see many familiar faces and speak to a sold-out house.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.classicist.org/poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.classicist.org/poster.jpg" height="196" width="400" /></a></div><br />As the body of the lecture was illustrated with images of rather staid classical buildings, we ended the talk on a lighter note with the image of this tent <i>(at top) </i>once in the gardens of the Parc Monceau here in Paris, and an audible gasp actually went through the audience. &nbsp; <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MRbWpvC03oU/VIQ5VH2R6eI/AAAAAAAABks/CHS1FanCETU/s1600/unnamed-2-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MRbWpvC03oU/VIQ5VH2R6eI/AAAAAAAABks/CHS1FanCETU/s1600/unnamed-2-.jpg" height="323" width="400" /></a></div><br />The Saturday following, we held a <a href="http://www.classicist.org/programs/courses/detail/architectural-watercolors-master-class/" target="_blank">master class on watercolor technique</a> for architectural rendering, sharing our trade secrets to an over-subscribed audience. It was a day-long affair, from 10 am to 6 pm, with an hour's pause for lunch. We enjoyed giving both presentations immensely and the organizers were very pleased with the response, and we look forward to a new series of talks next year. http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/12/lecture-and-master-class-at-icaa.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-5387550411200381307Sat, 29 Nov 2014 18:54:00 +00002014-12-03T12:45:31.717+01:00AW AnnouncementsLibretto GroupOur Architectural Desk Boxes Featured in Traditional Home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tqHvgk3bBuE/VHoVXDv8NnI/AAAAAAAABkE/qar8lA2hu6I/s1600/DeskBoxes3Set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tqHvgk3bBuE/VHoVXDv8NnI/AAAAAAAABkE/qar8lA2hu6I/s1600/DeskBoxes3Set.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>A far-too-long hiatus, but we are back to report that <i>Traditional Home</i> has featured our new desk boxes in their holiday issue. A small neoclassical ensemble for your desktop.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XMtqKgAONOU/VHoVi7xLWwI/AAAAAAAABkM/iksygOkLU_U/s1600/PalaceDisplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XMtqKgAONOU/VHoVi7xLWwI/AAAAAAAABkM/iksygOkLU_U/s1600/PalaceDisplay.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />There are three boxes, each of them in architectural shapes: the Tower stacking box, the Orangerie pencil box and the Palace letter caddy (<i>above, with the original watercolor</i>).<br /><br />You can find them at our <a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/product-category/boxes" target="_blank">AW online shop.</a><br /><br />And here is the <i>Traditional Home</i> clipping:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4DFpJtsaJJU/VHoVIqbV61I/AAAAAAAABj8/yzEvebjT5No/s1600/Traditional%2BHome-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4DFpJtsaJJU/VHoVIqbV61I/AAAAAAAABj8/yzEvebjT5No/s1600/Traditional%2BHome-2.jpg" height="400" width="181" /></a></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/11/our-architectural-desk-boxes-featured.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-2330326293998201093Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:31:00 +00002014-06-18T15:31:35.343+02:00AW AnnouncementsLibretto GroupNote cardstable lanternsA new video featuring AW journals, boxes, stationery and table lanterns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object width="320" height="266" class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/x-CiD7OKErg/0.jpg"><param name="movie" value="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/x-CiD7OKErg&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/x-CiD7OKErg&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><br /><br />Recently, we've been busy in the editing room and are happy to post a new video compilation of the first two seasons of paper products we've designed for Libretto Group of NYC.<br /><br />The video runs just over two and a half minutes and showcases our boxed note and correspondence cards, hardbound journals, desk boxes, table lanterns, nesting boxes, and holiday items as well. Enjoy.<br /><br />To locate a store near you, visit <a href="http://www.libretto-group.com/" target="_blank">Libretto Group</a>, or order at the <a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop" target="_blank">AW online shop</a>.<br /><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-new-video-featuring-aw-journals-boxes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-6009122049347773050Sun, 01 Jun 2014 15:06:00 +00002014-06-01T18:11:08.444+02:00AW AnnouncementsCentral ParkSunday SpotlightA new video of our book CENTRAL PARK NYC: An Architectural ViewWe are delighted to post this new video of our Rizzoli book,<i> CENTRAL PARK NYC: An Architectural View. </i>It runs two minutes and features numerous images, both our watercolors and photography old and new, that enrich the book's pages.<br /><br />Enjoy.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/nfEGu4Pjl1o/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/nfEGu4Pjl1o?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/nfEGu4Pjl1o?version=3&f=user_uploads&c=google-webdrive-0&app=youtube_gdata" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-new-video-of-our-book-central-park.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-2180974217363179621Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:36:00 +00002014-04-23T20:53:43.523+02:00Architectural AlphabetArticlesAW AnnouncementswatercolorsAn ICONic Article<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VumsRJwqWMc/U1f5Mdj-j7I/AAAAAAAABh4/1o5JjYGMZ2U/s1600/Seite+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VumsRJwqWMc/U1f5Mdj-j7I/AAAAAAAABh4/1o5JjYGMZ2U/s1600/Seite+1.jpg" height="400" width="283" /></a></div><br /><br />We are delighted to note that, this past Sunday, our work was featured in <i>Welt am Sonntag</i>, the Sunday magazine of Berlin's newspaper of record. In a rare honor, the watercolor vignette of <i>A is for Acanthus</i> from our <i>Architectural Alphabet</i> was featured as the cover illustration.<br /><br />But of course it was Einkuss, Bernd's Belgian pug, who stole the show. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Mozg0Raqac/U1f5UR8w6jI/AAAAAAAABiA/DZ3toOtnnbQ/s1600/Seite+50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4Mozg0Raqac/U1f5UR8w6jI/AAAAAAAABiA/DZ3toOtnnbQ/s1600/Seite+50.jpg" height="640" width="452" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j6Uu904EUv8/U1f5Z4EYavI/AAAAAAAABiI/yDy-YFYqRbo/s1600/Seite+51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j6Uu904EUv8/U1f5Z4EYavI/AAAAAAAABiI/yDy-YFYqRbo/s1600/Seite+51.jpg" height="640" width="452" /></a></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/04/an-iconic-article.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-654766834299994074Wed, 05 Feb 2014 13:28:00 +00002014-02-05T14:34:38.088+01:00AW AnnouncementsLibretto GroupNote cardstable lanternsTable lanterns, journals and boxed stationery now available at the AW online shop<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cof75bTCH-M/UvI3mb_C-FI/AAAAAAAABgk/qnVu5mkXu9k/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cof75bTCH-M/UvI3mb_C-FI/AAAAAAAABgk/qnVu5mkXu9k/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" height="400" width="373" /></a></div>&nbsp; <br /><br />Some weeks ago, we had announced that, after a much-too-long hiatus, our ever-popular table lanterns have returned, now distributed worldwide through Libretto Group. We are pleased to announce today that the lanterns are also now available at the <a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop" target="_blank">Architectural Watercolors online shop</a> for all those who do not have Libretto retailers in your area.<br /><br />To accomodate these additions, we have reorganized the AW online shop, adding product categories for the table lanterns as well as our new lines of boxed stationery and hardbound journals.<br /><br />We are also happy to report that Libretto will soon be releasing three new table lantern designs and several other stationery products for the spring season, and we will be posting about them shortly.<br /><br />Below are photographs of these new AW products and hotlinks to them:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gi6RCFPJ_-g/UvI3f_Go5mI/AAAAAAAABgc/7FYE_BjbRGE/s1600/Belvedere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gi6RCFPJ_-g/UvI3f_Go5mI/AAAAAAAABgc/7FYE_BjbRGE/s1600/Belvedere.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a>&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cof75bTCH-M/UvI3mb_C-FI/AAAAAAAABgk/qnVu5mkXu9k/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">&nbsp;</a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PbwAYDGAY0A/UvI2ocKQzuI/AAAAAAAABgM/0UQeZ1DY7TU/s1600/Belvedere+display+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PbwAYDGAY0A/UvI2ocKQzuI/AAAAAAAABgM/0UQeZ1DY7TU/s1600/Belvedere+display+web.jpg" height="398" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/the-belvedere" target="_blank"><i>The Belvedere</i> table lantern</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cof75bTCH-M/UvI3mb_C-FI/AAAAAAAABgo/UT5CpheBovs/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cof75bTCH-M/UvI3mb_C-FI/AAAAAAAABgo/UT5CpheBovs/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" height="400" width="373" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/the-tea-house" target="_blank"><i>The Tea House</i> table lantern</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--KecnQbAyLI/UvI3xHy3hoI/AAAAAAAABgs/_B6pL1GNviY/s1600/Jefferson+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--KecnQbAyLI/UvI3xHy3hoI/AAAAAAAABgs/_B6pL1GNviY/s1600/Jefferson+web.jpg" height="400" width="340" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/mr-jeffersons-folly" target="_blank"><i>Mr. Jefferson's Folly</i> table lantern</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LAfXAIx3PHg/UvI3Vr9UuDI/AAAAAAAABgU/NBIF0tyVQQU/s1600/YOP+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LAfXAIx3PHg/UvI3Vr9UuDI/AAAAAAAABgU/NBIF0tyVQQU/s1600/YOP+cover.jpg" height="400" width="285" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mOkhJACRD1E/UvI40qXAjgI/AAAAAAAABhM/98WxKFanCo4/s1600/YOP+endpapers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mOkhJACRD1E/UvI40qXAjgI/AAAAAAAABhM/98WxKFanCo4/s1600/YOP+endpapers.jpg" height="293" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>&nbsp; </i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YlHlSKhr64Y/UvI45NFWLjI/AAAAAAAABhU/1pV9cmntK-4/s1600/YOP+spread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YlHlSKhr64Y/UvI45NFWLjI/AAAAAAAABhU/1pV9cmntK-4/s1600/YOP+spread.jpg" height="293" width="400" /></a></i></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/1865" target="_blank"><i>Pagodas, A year of watercolors</i>&nbsp; hardbound journal</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zeuHrmFZS68/UvI33MFggOI/AAAAAAAABg0/nSDo1bhmQ30/s1600/Love+Triumphant+journal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zeuHrmFZS68/UvI33MFggOI/AAAAAAAABg0/nSDo1bhmQ30/s1600/Love+Triumphant+journal.jpg" height="400" width="325" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-15AYY8Yzedg/UvI8VrGgLwI/AAAAAAAABhg/1NzwSN8mSmk/s1600/LT+endpapers+display+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-15AYY8Yzedg/UvI8VrGgLwI/AAAAAAAABhg/1NzwSN8mSmk/s1600/LT+endpapers+display+(2).jpg" height="400" width="378" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/love-triumphant" target="_blank"><i>Love, Triumphant</i> hardbound journal</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dBpfxVBFxes/UvI39hUz3pI/AAAAAAAABg8/F4BSLLFpNCY/s1600/Pagoda+notecards+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-dBpfxVBFxes/UvI39hUz3pI/AAAAAAAABg8/F4BSLLFpNCY/s1600/Pagoda+notecards+web.jpg" height="293" width="400" />&nbsp;</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uGDHJEVEbos/UvI4DYehNOI/AAAAAAAABhE/37XtS5v0STE/s1600/Pagoda+notecards2+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uGDHJEVEbos/UvI4DYehNOI/AAAAAAAABhE/37XtS5v0STE/s1600/Pagoda+notecards2+web.jpg" height="323" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp; </div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.architecturalwatercolors.com/shop/pagodas-note-card-folio" target="_blank"><i>Pagodas</i> notecards folio </a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/02/table-lanterns-journals-and-boxed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-3289908350655210118Wed, 22 Jan 2014 03:14:00 +00002014-01-29T10:22:55.144+01:00acting badlyManhattanHelp Save the Rizzoli Bookstore in Mahattan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CE864OtFzx0/UujIZQQLcPI/AAAAAAAABf8/pSUVYeGvZ5c/s1600/rizzolimanhattan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CE864OtFzx0/UujIZQQLcPI/AAAAAAAABf8/pSUVYeGvZ5c/s1600/rizzolimanhattan.jpg" height="400" width="301" /></a></div><br />The Rizzoli Bookstore and its iconic Beaux-Arts home at 31 West 57th Street in Manhattan <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/rizzoli-bookstore-demolition-57th-street-building-lacks-significance-landmark-protection-says-nyc" target="_blank">has been slated for demolition </a>to make way for luxury high-rise apartments.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://rizzolibookstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pic_bookstore_021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://rizzolibookstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/pic_bookstore_021.jpg" height="258" width="400" /></a></div><br />We ask everyone concerned for historic preservation to take a moment to <a href="https://saverizzoli.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">sign the petition here</a> to ask the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission to reconsider its ruling and to designate the 109 year-old structure and its sumptuous interiors as a deserving landmark--<i>how could such a worthy building not already be landmarked?</i>--for future generations.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/v2_article_large/public/2014/01/17/rizzoli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/v2_article_large/public/2014/01/17/rizzoli.jpg" height="266" width="400" />&nbsp;</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;<a href="http://media.tumblr.com/b84196ac42bfa15b85f5967d8463a5d3/tumblr_inline_mnljx2VUjQ1qz4rgp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://media.tumblr.com/b84196ac42bfa15b85f5967d8463a5d3/tumblr_inline_mnljx2VUjQ1qz4rgp.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">&nbsp;Prior decisions have been reversed but time is of the essence, and every voice does indeed count to bring enough public pressure to bear to save one of New York's most beautiful literary landmarks from the wrecking ball.</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GjLvVlFgg3M/Ut849293ApI/AAAAAAAABfs/yxZsHPim3jw/s1600/miley-cyrus-wrecking-ball.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GjLvVlFgg3M/Ut849293ApI/AAAAAAAABfs/yxZsHPim3jw/s1600/miley-cyrus-wrecking-ball.jpg" height="352" width="400" /></a></div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/01/help-save-rizzoli-bookstore-in-mahattan.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-4166034986150651004Sat, 18 Jan 2014 14:16:00 +00002014-01-20T04:34:03.889+01:00acting badlyContemporary politicsLouis XIVLouis XVVersaillesLa Maîtresse en Titre, an enduring French tradition <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72332000/jpg/_72332535_020559647-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/72332000/jpg/_72332535_020559647-1.jpg" height="288" width="400" /></a></div><br />As the BBC is fond of calling him lately, "the man said to be the President of France" was—<i>"perhaps"</i>—infamously photographed in a crash helmet, leaving a purported love nest shared with a well-known actress while his chauffeur-driven <i>moto</i> waited at curb. The chauffeur of the Presidential Scooter, <a href="http://www.closermag.fr/people/politique/enquete-closer-francois-hollande-et-julie-gayet-ils-saiment-depuis-2-ans-260051" target="_blank"><i>Closer </i>magazine </a>reported in an explosive seven-page exposé, also delivered fresh croissants in the mornings.<br /><br />Hollande, a committed bachelor, has refused to explain himself, citing a longstanding French tradition of not delving too closely into the private lives of its public servants (with good reason), and<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25768016" target="_blank"> the implicated actress has now sued <i>Closer</i> for libel</a>, another longstanding French tradition for public figures who find themselves facing the unwelcome glare of unwanted publicity. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/S8NrJiwm6HGkJq.tX8i5Iw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/fr/blogs/hollywood-insider/paparazzi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/S8NrJiwm6HGkJq.tX8i5Iw--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/fr/blogs/hollywood-insider/paparazzi.jpg" height="191" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />Meanwhile, in a dramatic development worthy of a soap-opera plot twist, the current Somewhat First Lady of France, Hollande's companion Valerie Trierweiler, has precipitously <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25778621" target="_blank">secluded herself in a Parisian hospital, suffering from "shock."</a><br /><br />Unsurprisingly, President Hollande's abysmal poll numbers have rebounded by several percentage points, since <i>en ce pays-ci </i>respect is axiomatically accorded a virile leader, whatever his politics or abilities. With the latest revelation that he had managed to keep the alleged affair secret for over two years, including a hotly contested presidential campaign, the thinking goes that Hollande may indeed have hitherto unremarked managerial skills. And after all, Hollande presides over a country which actually has a name for the just-after-work hours so propitious for infidelity—<i>l'heure bleue</i>—and which also has a tradition of selecting iconic sex symbols such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve as models for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne" target="_blank">Marianne</a>, the official state muse.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-C-jQnHcsM/UtqBG7V4IFI/AAAAAAAABfg/4u4JghvHhUY/s1600/Bardot_Marianne.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-C-jQnHcsM/UtqBG7V4IFI/AAAAAAAABfg/4u4JghvHhUY/s1600/Bardot_Marianne.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>During the Ancien Régime, mistresses, most famously <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_de_Pompadour" target="_blank">Madame de Pompadour</a>, lover of Louis XV, were routinely ennobled and held a high official rank—<i>Maîtresse en titre</i>—and often wielded great sway over affairs of state. Madame de Pompadour not only reigned over patronage of the arts in the Rococo age but also influenced the choice of ministers and the strategy of the Seven Years' War. Her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, was appointed to the coveted post of Superintendent of Royal Buildings and so oversaw all government construction in the realm. A woman of considerable acumen, Pompadour created the infamous Parc aux Cerfs, an exclusive royal bordello in the town of Versailles, to satiate the king's voracious appetites and secure her position once her own charms had waned. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1aqqtexhe1qatfdco1_500.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1aqqtexhe1qatfdco1_500.png" height="400" width="336" /></a></div><br />After her death, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_du_Barry" target="_blank">Madame du Barry</a>, a nubile denizen of the Parc, ascended to la Pompadour's position but never her station. <i>(Below, François Boucher's odalesque of Jeanne&nbsp;Bécu shortly before she became a countess.)</i><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/deer1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/deer1.jpg" height="322" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />But the quintessential concubine was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise-Ath%C3%A9na%C3%AFs,_marquise_de_Montespan" target="_blank">Madame de Montespan</a>,<i> l'Athenée</i>—well-born, clever, scheming, haughty and ambitious—who had bewitched Louis XIV in his early middle age (quite literally and scandalously with a love philtre procured from a satanist who also brewed very efficient poisons, but that is another story). The king sired four illegitimate children with her, all later ennobled, one of whom was later exiled as an insurrectionist. While in royal favor, "La Montespan" reigned as de facto queen, with a suite of rooms at Versailles that eclipsed those of the actual queen, the homely and devout Infanta, Maria Theresa. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Francois-Athenais_de_Rochechouart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Francois-Athenais_de_Rochechouart.jpg" height="400" width="263" /></a></div><br />Louis XIV's German sister-in-law, la Princesse Palatine, in her posthumous letters reported that during the Dutch Wars, Louis XIV dutifully spent much of each campaign season at the front, presiding over war councils and generally being deferred to, though “he took quite a long time dressing; he had his moustache curled and sometimes spent half an hour before the mirror arranging it with wax.“ (With victory in sight, the undertaking degenerated into showmanship and farce, as when the king invited his decorator and gardener to tour the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Cambrai_%281677%29" target="_blank">siege of Cambrai</a> in 1677, instructing his minister Colbert to pay Le Brun and Le Nôtre each 1500 <i>livres</i> for their pains.)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Surrender_cambrai1677.jpg/687px-Surrender_cambrai1677.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Surrender_cambrai1677.jpg/687px-Surrender_cambrai1677.jpg" height="348" width="400" /></a></div><br />And it was at Cambrai—a jump-the-shark moment if ever there was one—that the king joined his armies with the queen and two mistresses in tow like a band of gypsy camp followers. German mercenaries heckled Madame de Montespan as they marched in revue, whistling and shouting, <i>“Konigs Hure!"</i> At dinner that evening, the king inquired how she had liked the maneuvers and Montespan replied, “Perfectly lovely, only I find the Germans far too naïve for insisting upon calling everything by its proper name.“ <br /><br />It was also understood that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_d%27Aubign%C3%A9,_Marquise_de_Maintenon" target="_blank">Madame de Maintenon,</a> a late and pivotal mistress of Louis XIV, controlled state affairs by forcing all ministers and petitioners to pass through the gauntlet of her <i>appartements</i> at Versailles if they hoped to gain access to the king. She was known at court as "Madame de Maintenant" (Madame Now), and had doubtless married the king privately, though this was never officially acknowledged. <br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.linternaute.com/histoire/magazine/dossier/06/elles-ont-regne/images/madame-de-maintenon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.linternaute.com/histoire/magazine/dossier/06/elles-ont-regne/images/madame-de-maintenon.JPG" height="320" width="252" /></a></div><br />Like just about everything else during the Ancien Régime, the changing of the guard was also handled with aplomb. In one of those almost-too-good-to-be-true moments of history which are nonetheless true, Madame de Montespan, on her way out, and Madame de Maintenon, on her way in, first met on a staircase in Versailles. Madame de Maintenon was ascending and Madame de Montespan descending. The former remarked, "I see that you are going down, Madame, while I am going up." <br /><br />Upon her fall, which was both spectacular and precipitous, la Montespan exiled herself to a nunnery and occupied herself with expiatory good works, in keeping with another longstanding tradition of discarded royal mistresses, as hospitals in that century were where the destitute were brought to die. <br /><br /><i>Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.</i>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/01/la-maitresse-en-titre-enduring-french.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-7760643548146907680Mon, 06 Jan 2014 11:12:00 +00002014-01-09T00:23:21.016+01:00Amazing GraceCentral ParkJohn LennonManhattanmemorialssymbolismWashington DCStrawberry Fields<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pIZin_lHlDA/UsqAq42gInI/AAAAAAAABes/qZpo_u7Zq7Y/s1600/imagine.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pIZin_lHlDA/UsqAq42gInI/AAAAAAAABes/qZpo_u7Zq7Y/s1600/imagine.jpg" height="217" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: ZapfHumanist601BT-Italic; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><i><br /> Following is an augmented excerpt of the chapter "Memorials and Monuments" from our latest book,</i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Central-Park-NYC-Architectural-View/dp/0847840794/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375714921&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=central+park+NYC">Central Park NYC</a>,<i> published this past September by Rizzoli. </i><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: ZapfHumanist601BT-Italic; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nOFYS5RpECw/TLUaIC58tOI/AAAAAAAABqs/x25GY_hDnDM/s640/dakota.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nOFYS5RpECw/TLUaIC58tOI/AAAAAAAABqs/x25GY_hDnDM/s640/dakota.jpg" height="262" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: ZapfHumanist601BT-Italic; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></i></div>Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow, conceived Strawberry Fields as a living memorial to her slain husband and dedicated the site on what would have been the singer’s forty-fifth birthday, October 9, 1985. The two-and-a-half-acre informal garden occupies a sloping triangle of land at Central Park West and 72nd Street near the Dakota Apartments, the family’s residence and the site where Lennon was murdered on the evening of December 8, 1980. Ono worked with landscape architect Bruce Kelly and the <a href="http://www.centralparknyc.org/">Central Park Conservancy</a> to transform the parcel into a Garden of Peace with plants donated by over 120 nations.<br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ih3.redbubble.net/image.14939684.6895/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ih3.redbubble.net/image.14939684.6895/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br />The garden, of course, is named after one of Lennon's most famous Beatles songs, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Fields_Forever">Strawberry Fields Forever</a>,</i> a haunting psychedelic reminiscence of his childhood secret garden, the grounds of the Strawberry Field orphanage in Woolton, Liverpool. The iconic Imagine mosaic, a simple round set in the pavement at the heart of the garden, has become a shrine to Lennon’s memory, collecting notes, flowers and votive candles from his myriad fans, and it is the site of annual vigils to celebrate his birth and mourn his death. <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Bed-In_for_Peace,_Amsterdam_1969_-_John_Lennon_&amp;_Yoko_Ono_17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Bed-In_for_Peace,_Amsterdam_1969_-_John_Lennon_&amp;_Yoko_Ono_17.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></a></div><br />Though often described as interpreting traditional Roman patterns, the design is actually far more expressive than this reading allows and alludes to Lennon's uniquely provocative pacifism and strongly Buddhist leanings and worldview. <i>(Above, Lennon and Ono staging their famous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed-In">bed-in for peace</a> in Amsterdam in 1969.) IMAGINE,</i> the title of Lennon’s famous 1971 peace anthem, holds the center of an abstracted lotus flower made of thirty-two radiating segments, the number of Buddha’s virtues. <i>(Below, Buddha on the lotus throne.)</i><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41J0Q95ciuL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41J0Q95ciuL.jpg" height="320" width="206" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div>In Buddhist traditions, the fully opened lotus, rising above muddied waters, symbolizes enlightenment, and a white lotus connotes purity of mind and spirit. The duality of black and white represents matter and spirit, the mud from which the lotus blooms and the blossom of understanding. And finally, the flower signifies rebirth in a figural and literal sense, entirely appropriate to honor a musician who integrated Buddhist mantras into his music and Buddhist philosophy and a Buddhist worldview into his life.<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="https://ytimg.googleusercontent.com/vi/PN9n1bAahg4/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/PN9n1bAahg4&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/PN9n1bAahg4&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div>Disarmingly simple, a single word centering an abstracted flower, Lennon’s memorial owes an enormous conceptual debt to Maya Lin’s revolutionary 1982 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Veterans_Memorial">Vietnam Veterans Memorial</a> in Washington, D.C., which overturned traditional notions of a monument’s form and conceptual underpinnings. <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://perceptivetravel.com/blog/wp-content/5249593792_7f98ebb06b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://perceptivetravel.com/blog/wp-content/5249593792_7f98ebb06b.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div><br />However, the <i>Imagine</i> mosaic takes Lin’s abstraction a step further by renouncing three-dimensionality entirely and setting its single-word message into the earth, where it can be trod upon or reverenced—a wry and profoundly insightful evocation of Lennon’s humanity and spirit.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DRU47FK0oLs/UsqJZOAr6TI/AAAAAAAABe8/qojBCLpyrPc/s1600/ReverieWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DRU47FK0oLs/UsqJZOAr6TI/AAAAAAAABe8/qojBCLpyrPc/s1600/ReverieWeb.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a></div>And finally, and as Buddha himself would have observed, there is nothing new under the sun and we find a remarkable conceptual precursor in the 18th-century French garden of <a href="http://www.chateau-ermenonville.com/en">Ermenonville</a>, the Altar of Reverie—a simple cylindrical socle, artfully aged, inscribed with the invocation, "To Dream."http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2014/01/strawberry-fields.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-1546043443713393645Tue, 17 Dec 2013 16:10:00 +00002014-11-29T19:59:12.822+01:00Amazing GracefontsFranco Maria RicciLabyrinthsTasteFranco Maria Ricci's extraordinary labyrinth<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KSLVWwajHw/UrBl2_ZMgYI/AAAAAAAABck/V_Ohd7wkFyw/s1600/Montaggio-Labirinto-750x468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3KSLVWwajHw/UrBl2_ZMgYI/AAAAAAAABck/V_Ohd7wkFyw/s400/Montaggio-Labirinto-750x468.jpg" height="248" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">On the fertile agricultural plain surrounding Parma, Italy, you can drive for days while visiting the region's spectacular Renaissance towns, churches and villas (<i>below, the view from the terrace of the Castello di Fontanellato</i>) without ever laying eyes on a single cow that gives the milk that is aged to its glorious Parmesan cheese, nor will you ever see one of the pigs that eventually yield its succulent Parma ham. One dines spectacularly well there, even by Italian standards, but exactly how this is achieved is one of Parma's small mysteries—though an occasional noxious breeze, pungent enough to strip paint, will assure you that these beasts do indeed lurk somewhere hidden in those broad green fields, just beyond sight.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JvVuytkgzTE/UrBoyDuhGuI/AAAAAAAABc4/qV9ZH-xDsKg/s1600/Fontanellato+Terrace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JvVuytkgzTE/UrBoyDuhGuI/AAAAAAAABc4/qV9ZH-xDsKg/s400/Fontanellato+Terrace.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PX8Gq79ZyJk/UrHvq-hJofI/AAAAAAAABd8/1VQ51HWpY-Q/s1600/ParmaFields.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PX8Gq79ZyJk/UrHvq-hJofI/AAAAAAAABd8/1VQ51HWpY-Q/s400/ParmaFields.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Franco Maria Ricci, the legendary publisher, lives on his ancestral lands in Fontanellato, which he has transformed according to his own unique aesthetic vision. He is the man who near single-handedly<a href="http://www.riccieditore.it/online/Bodoni.aspx?idArea=411&amp;lang=ITA&amp;do=opera&amp;idArt=32" target="_blank"> revived the work </a>of the great neoclassical typographer, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Bodoni" target="_blank">Giambattista Bodoni</a>, who had made Parma his home in the late eighteenth century. Ricci comes from ancient Parmesan nobility and has dedicated his life to the cultivation and dissemination of all that is extraordinary, remarkable and beautiful, by way of the pages of his namesake magazine, <a href="http://www.riccieditore.it/real/home.aspx?idArea=0&amp;lang=ITA" target="_blank">FMR</a> ("the most beautiful magazine in the world") and a host of magnificent publications. Fortuitously, pronouncing his initials in French yields the word <i>ephémère</i>, ephemeral, and it is this aura of felicity and harmony that this most cultivated of men has cultivated throughout his life, seemingly effortlessly.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdnimg.fonts.net/CatalogImages/23/170.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cdnimg.fonts.net/CatalogImages/23/170.png" height="145" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">This past summer, I spent several days with friends visiting Ricci and his charming companion, Laura Casalis, who graciously welcomed us with their generous hospitality. A warm, sunny day was reserved for visiting Ricci's estate, and after traversing miles of sun-struck, open fields with barely a poplar in sight, we passed a simple modern gate and drove down a long, shaded and sun-dappled allée of bamboo to find ourselves in another world—a verdant compound set in a bamboo glade that could just as well be found in Mexico. An old farm building has been converted into a contemporary entertaining space of impressive scale—an aerie looking into the bamboo canopy, with an inky-dark lake to one side.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8P2R6IeIyaQ/UrHwtK5sNzI/AAAAAAAABeE/8Fa-7t3DZ8A/s1600/Ricci+Casa+Web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8P2R6IeIyaQ/UrHwtK5sNzI/AAAAAAAABeE/8Fa-7t3DZ8A/s400/Ricci+Casa+Web.jpg" height="260" width="400" />&nbsp;</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">&nbsp;<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ic24419h4XM/UrBuxdUT_TI/AAAAAAAABdg/HUWoMnNlTKA/s1600/Ricci3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ic24419h4XM/UrBuxdUT_TI/AAAAAAAABdg/HUWoMnNlTKA/s400/Ricci3.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">The contrast between the sun-struck fields without and the bamboo forest (or perhaps jungle) within was vivid and delightful; Ricci has crafted his own private world—even his own private micro-climate. Further on, Ricci has renovated the ground floor of the crumbling ancestral villa into an elegant suite of rooms with a barrel-vaulted, neoclassical library which houses the largest collection of Bodoni's printed works in the world. Like the vast, Barragan-esque patio compound, the neoclassical grotto beneath the overgrown ruins is a complete, shocking, satisfying surprise.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dhXmgj5Pjzo/UrHsrQmyqEI/AAAAAAAABdw/1QPTKNPneSk/s1600/FMR+libraryWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dhXmgj5Pjzo/UrHsrQmyqEI/AAAAAAAABdw/1QPTKNPneSk/s400/FMR+libraryWeb.jpg" height="400" width="327" /></a></div><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vUal5taJ8n8/UrH1vGONjiI/AAAAAAAABec/qe9Sz5o0BTE/s1600/FMR+visit2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vUal5taJ8n8/UrH1vGONjiI/AAAAAAAABec/qe9Sz5o0BTE/s320/FMR+visit2.jpg" height="279" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Further on, some ten minute's walk, lies the most remarkable of all Ricci's marvels, his bamboo labyrinth, covering 17.5 acres, by a factor of five the largest maze in the world. The labyrinth, of course, is an ancient cipher representing man's path through life; its circuitous course, from periphery to center,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>symbolizes life's journey from ignorance to self-knowledge and enlightenment. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-38ejmlzMOks/UrBqeECwZ3I/AAAAAAAABdE/fNjZWjBF4X8/s1600/Ricci+Labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-38ejmlzMOks/UrBqeECwZ3I/AAAAAAAABdE/fNjZWjBF4X8/s400/Ricci+Labyrinth.jpg" height="400" width="330" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The plan of Ricci's labyrinth, two overlapping squares, evokes Renaissance fortifications, and over a dozen species of bamboo have been planted to form its high, dense allées. Inside its precincts he has constructed a museum and study center which will house his library and collections, as well as a visitor's center.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FLm70chaCAg/UrBrWD7u2DI/AAAAAAAABdM/OMrwlvUj-qM/s1600/Ricci+Labyrinth2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FLm70chaCAg/UrBrWD7u2DI/AAAAAAAABdM/OMrwlvUj-qM/s400/Ricci+Labyrinth2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The compound, built of warm rose Roman brick, is designed in a neoclassical vocabulary and laid out in a series of symmetrical, generously scaled courtyards, perhaps better called atria.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dwmS27TFBMQ/UrH1lcQVXzI/AAAAAAAABeU/R3jfFOW8CH0/s1600/Ricci+Triumphal+Arch+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dwmS27TFBMQ/UrH1lcQVXzI/AAAAAAAABeU/R3jfFOW8CH0/s400/Ricci+Triumphal+Arch+web.jpg" height="322" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />A triumphal arch greets visitors entering the compound, and the main axis culminates with yet another surprise, a pyramidal folly. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MYkACk2PdU/UrBrdEC6psI/AAAAAAAABdU/mdeH88rdUA0/s1600/Ricci+pyramid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4MYkACk2PdU/UrBrdEC6psI/AAAAAAAABdU/mdeH88rdUA0/s400/Ricci+pyramid.jpg" height="400" width="307" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">The scale of the undertaking is commensurate with the audacity of Ricci's vision. He chuckled when he said, leading us unerringly through the maze, that no one would be allowed to enter the labyrinth without a portable phone, but indeed the rule will be necessary once the kilometres of paths are opened to the public.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://bookmanager.com/bni/9780847841646/jacket_med.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://bookmanager.com/bni/9780847841646/jacket_med.jpg" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />On a final note, Rizzoli has recently published Ricci's book, <a href="http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847841646" target="_blank"><i>Labyrinths</i></a>; needless to say, it too is exceptional.</div><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-extraordinary-franco-maria-riccis.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-2392442194833278115Fri, 06 Dec 2013 22:13:00 +00002013-12-16T15:58:20.457+01:00acting badlyContemporary politicsFrench RevolutionLedouxAux barricades, comrades!France toys with its next revolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_ZOSNTWqVI/UmzvcvHKikI/AAAAAAAAUMw/DsgdN7-yFmk/s1600/eco+taxe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y_ZOSNTWqVI/UmzvcvHKikI/AAAAAAAAUMw/DsgdN7-yFmk/s400/eco+taxe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Mon dieu!</i> Where to begin? the French government, in a bout of historical amnesia, has decided to erect a nationwide network of electronic "éco-tax" barriers straddling its major highways (which have been privatized into corporate-owned toll-roads, but that is another matter) to collect an environmental tax upon the country's long-distance truckers.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.slate.fr/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-story/bonnets-rouges-quimper-reuters.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://www.slate.fr/sites/default/files/imagecache/node-story/bonnets-rouges-quimper-reuters.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Well, apparently this was the tax too far, the<i> impot</i> that broke the camel's back, and Brittany—that poor, agrarian and fiercely self-aware region that French nationalism never fully managed to tame—has gone into open revolt. Red Phrygian caps, or "red bonnets," symbol of the French revolution of 1789, have become all the rage, sported by enraged <i>citoyens </i>who gather to wave the Breton flag and to set fire to these newly erected electronic tax barriers, while the nation's truckers have organized to block the country's major vehicular arteries for the last several weekends. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://images.midilibre.fr/images/2013/11/05/des-milliers-de-bretons-aux-bonnets-rouges-contre-l-ecotaxe_722030_510x255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://images.midilibre.fr/images/2013/11/05/des-milliers-de-bretons-aux-bonnets-rouges-contre-l-ecotaxe_722030_510x255.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Open revolt. That, in a nutshell, is what is currently brewing <i>en ce pays-ci</i>, which coincides with record levels of popular discontent with the government and a record-low approval rate for the Président de la République, François Hollande. Hollande has plumbed the lowest depths of approval (and conversely the apex of popular disapproval), reaching 16% overall approval in the latest national polling—just<a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/congressional_performance" target="_blank"> nine percentage points ahead of the US Congress</a>.<br /><br />In an unprecedented display of public discontent,<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/francois-hollande-booed-protesters-arrested-armistice-day" target="_blank"> Hollande was publicly booed and heckled while observing solemn Armistice celebrations</a> at the base of the Arc de triomphe this past November 11. For the moment, civil disobediance and organized arson are reserved for weekends and national holidays, in the French tradition of protest as wholesome family entertainment. However, all this could change with further incitement, leading to an escalation to public strikes—another French tradition <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/social/2013/11/11/09010-20131111ARTFIG00299-thierry-lepaon-le-climat-est-tres-tendu-c-est-explosif-partout.php" target="_blank">that even the leader of the nation's most leftist union has publicly disavowed, fearing to become the spark that sets off a mood that is "explosive all over."</a><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.focusur.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/hollande-hu%C3%A9-champs-elysees-11-novembre-demission-interpell%C3%A9s-70-personnes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="285" src="http://www.focusur.fr/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/hollande-hu%C3%A9-champs-elysees-11-novembre-demission-interpell%C3%A9s-70-personnes.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the country's <i>préfets</i>, akin to county executives, sent <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2013/11/13/01002-20131113ARTFIG00612-fronde-sociale-et-fiscale-les-prefets-sonnent-l-alarme.php" target="_blank">a confidential, leaked memo to the Elysée</a> that stated in the starkest of terms that conditions in France are a "tinderbox," that the populace has never been more resentful of the unrelenting onslaught of increasing taxes and stagnating incomes, and that the government had better take heed of, and gingerly diffuse, this volatile situation or face a "<i>fronde sociale</i>," or popular revolt.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">So, what did the government do? Why, it also decided to increase the national sales tax, or TVA, come the new year. <i>Bonne année!&nbsp;</i> Only problem,<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2013/11/12/sondage-ras-le-bol-fiscal-64-hausses-impots-81-systeme-injuste_n_4260066.html?utm_hp_ref=france" target="_blank"> fully 81% of French citizens find the current tax system unjust and want the country's finances completely revamped</a>.<i><br /></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">A few tidbits of history, to put all this in perspective. The last time France had a revolution, in 1789, it was incited by increasingly onerous taxation by a deeply indebted government, culminating with the construction of a physical Berlin wall of tax barriers about Paris, imprisoning the city's populace (we even blogged about it, <a href="http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.fr/2012/03/ledoux-all-seeing-eye.html" target="_blank">here</a>).</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ghamu.org/IMG/jpg/Barriere-Versailles-Ledoux-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="286" src="http://www.ghamu.org/IMG/jpg/Barriere-Versailles-Ledoux-.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Also note the uncanny resemblance of President Hollande to Louis XVI, and the uncanny resemblance of his policies to those of the late, beheaded monarch: blind allegiance to the status quo in the face of increasing popular discontent during <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25402881" target="_blank">a prolonged period of deepening economic adversity</a>. One should also remark that Hollande shows none of the creativity or intestinal fortitude necessary to reddress the mounting crisis of confidence in the competence and direction of the French government itself, to say nothing of a fundamantal realignment, overwhelmingly demanded by the citizenry, of its implacably oppressive tax structure.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.contrepoints.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Hollande-Louis-XVI-majest%C3%A9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.contrepoints.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Hollande-Louis-XVI-majest%C3%A9.png" width="275" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Today,<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/europe/27france.html?_r=0" target="_blank"> the <i>New York Times</i> reports</a> that the populist, far-right Front National is the most popular political party in France, with the Socialist Party of Hollande trailing badly. You do not need to be an oracle or a political pundit to divine that the present moment is about the absolute worst time for the government to re-erect a modern version of the tax barriers that incited the French Revolution.&nbsp;</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal">Willful amnesia, and <i>déjà vu </i>all over again.</div>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/12/normal-0-mon-dieu-where-to-begin-french.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-6999804229955200994Mon, 02 Dec 2013 19:14:00 +00002013-12-02T20:22:29.728+01:00AW AnnouncementsCentral ParkGalignaniParisCelebrating Central Park NYC at Librarie Galignani, Paris<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BimWqtp-bPw/UpzbBZlA4BI/AAAAAAAABcU/8r11NViWwT8/s1600/Galignani.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BimWqtp-bPw/UpzbBZlA4BI/AAAAAAAABcU/8r11NViWwT8/s400/Galignani.jpg" width="281" /></a></div><br />We're delighted to announce that Paris' premier bookstore, the august <a href="http://www.galignani.fr/" target="_blank">Librarie Galignani</a> on the rue de Rivoli, will be hosting an evening celebrating publication of <i>Central Park NYC</i> on the fourth December<i>--hélas</i> by invitation only, but we hope if you have recieved your invitation that you'll join us then.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPcsi5F_2b4/S30Z20TAJDI/AAAAAAAAABM/4kfWxrzBZtg/s1600/Galignani_Z%2526D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPcsi5F_2b4/S30Z20TAJDI/AAAAAAAAABM/4kfWxrzBZtg/s400/Galignani_Z%2526D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />We will give a short talk about the book and Central Park, and then be available to sign copies. These are festive evenings that mingle current events and the love of books, and Galignani has created a wonderful authors' program that has made it a center of Parisian culture. Needless to say, we are honored and are looking forward immensely to the <i>soirée.</i><br /><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/12/celebrating-central-park-nyc-at.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-8922680057976100640Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:27:00 +00002013-11-28T11:18:44.929+01:00AW AnnouncementsChinoiserieFolliesLibretto GroupwatercolorsA Year of Pagodas agenda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cGudO7jwwMA/UpYa4Urn3jI/AAAAAAAABb0/Ca3rMXQ4Bco/s1600/YOP+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cGudO7jwwMA/UpYa4Urn3jI/AAAAAAAABb0/Ca3rMXQ4Bco/s400/YOP+cover.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br /><br />As a part of our first season of paper products for Libretto Group, we have also designed an agenda, <i>A Year of Pagodas</i>, that features a dozen spreads of our Chinoiserie fantasy watercolors, one for each month of the year (<i>below is a sample spread for October</i>).<br /><br /><i>Pagodas</i> is a B5 format, hardbound notebook (7" x 10") with 144 ruled pages, twelve double-page spreads and a ribbon marker. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f2liD6roDrg/UpYbqvAYGoI/AAAAAAAABb8/QFvHBTjFcig/s1600/YOP+spread.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-f2liD6roDrg/UpYbqvAYGoI/AAAAAAAABb8/QFvHBTjFcig/s400/YOP+spread.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />The cover features a crisp blue-and-white toile de Jouy pattern, reversed for the endpapers (<i>bottom</i>), which also include a whimsical bookplate. The page ends are gilded and each month's ten lined pages are crowned with that month's pagoda silhouetted in miniature.<br /><br />As with the other items in the collection, <a href="http://libretto-group.com/stores.htm" target="_blank">please follow this link to find a retailer near you or contact Libretto Group directly.</a><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VBCLEsgK1IM/UpYb6fDnF7I/AAAAAAAABcE/mN4EU_RHqi8/s1600/Year+of+Pagodas+endpapers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VBCLEsgK1IM/UpYb6fDnF7I/AAAAAAAABcE/mN4EU_RHqi8/s400/Year+of+Pagodas+endpapers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/11/a-year-of-pagodas-agenda.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-8868312535992552455Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:35:00 +00002014-02-05T14:31:45.255+01:00AW AnnouncementsLibretto Grouptable lanternsTable lanterns are back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOTuHyaM8wI/UolC4ZjqSuI/AAAAAAAABbU/yPdQU2iQTzE/s1600/101521367_p.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fOTuHyaM8wI/UolC4ZjqSuI/AAAAAAAABbU/yPdQU2iQTzE/s400/101521367_p.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><br />In our last post, we mentioned that we have a new design partnership with Libretto Group of New York, manufacturers and distributors of innovative paper products. Libretto's other design partners include Christian Lacroix, the <i>New York Times</i> and London's Victoria &amp; Albert Museum.<br /><br />In addition to the Chinoiserie note cards featured in our last post, Libretto is also distributing our ever-popular <a href="http://libretto-group.com/architectural_watercolors.htm?product=Lanterns" target="_blank">table lantern designs</a>: the Belvedere (<i>above</i>, a neoclassical pavilion), the Tea House (below, a Chinoiserie pagoda) and Mr. Jefferson's Folly (<i>bottom,</i> a Georgian/neoPalladian pavilion). These paper lanterns have been extremely popular and unfortunately they have also been out of stock for some time, but we are delighted to announce that they are once again available<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;ZapfHumnst BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">—</span>and worldwide at that. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfMuzzjVUvY/UolDn5RoMxI/AAAAAAAABbc/Sy-CxSenSZ8/s1600/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MfMuzzjVUvY/UolDn5RoMxI/AAAAAAAABbc/Sy-CxSenSZ8/s400/TeaHouseEnvelopeWeb.jpg" height="400" width="373" /></a></div><br /><br />Also, Libretto will be launching a new series of lanterns early in the new year, with an even greater variety of designs to choose from, and we will be posting about them in due course.<br /><br />If you wish to purchase, <a href="http://libretto-group.com/stores.htm?type=ONLINE" target="_blank">please look here for a store near you or contact Libretto Group directly for your nearest retailor</a>. Also, Libretto will shortly be expanding their website to include an advanced store finder to make finding a retailer an easy task.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xup0Y0e8S_g/UolD8gEjPRI/AAAAAAAABbk/LRuDz4NXyCw/s1600/JeffersonEnvelopeWeb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Xup0Y0e8S_g/UolD8gEjPRI/AAAAAAAABbk/LRuDz4NXyCw/s400/JeffersonEnvelopeWeb.jpg" height="400" width="295" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/11/table-lanterns-are-back.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-4577220942550035122Mon, 04 Nov 2013 16:26:00 +00002013-11-04T19:47:27.597+01:00ADAW AnnouncementsChinoiserieLibretto GroupNote cardsChinoiserie note cards in Architectural Digest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PLPDMB4peIE/UnfItOpj27I/AAAAAAAABas/tmjePzq_WSU/s1600/Pagoda+notecards+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PLPDMB4peIE/UnfItOpj27I/AAAAAAAABas/tmjePzq_WSU/s400/Pagoda+notecards+web.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><i>Architectural Digest</i> has featured our new package of Chinoiserie note cards in their latest issue (<i>screen capture below</i>), available at <a href="http://www.frick.org/shop" target="_blank">The Frick Collection museum shop</a> in Manhattan and at select retailers worldwide.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yahf8vpDPbc/UnfI7R_djwI/AAAAAAAABa0/WMUf-IZat2U/s1600/photo.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yahf8vpDPbc/UnfI7R_djwI/AAAAAAAABa0/WMUf-IZat2U/s640/photo.PNG" width="480" /></a></div><br /><br />There are two folding cards each of four motifs, reproducing our watercolors of fantasy pagodas framed by a deep red Chinoiserie fillet/border. The reverse of the cards feature the pagodas in silhouette against richly colored grounds (<i>below</i>). The images are printed on a heavywieght laid paper and are packaged with envelopes in a handsome paper wallet.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ezaNWCdTkaU/UnfJRjOXFmI/AAAAAAAABa8/J_ts1XZfVLY/s1600/Pagoda+notecards2+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="323" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ezaNWCdTkaU/UnfJRjOXFmI/AAAAAAAABa8/J_ts1XZfVLY/s400/Pagoda+notecards2+web.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />The card set is part of our first season of designs for <a href="http://libretto-group.com/" target="_blank">Libretto Group</a>, manufacturers of innovative stationery and paper products. Libretto is a dynamic company based in Manhattan with a worldwide distribution; their other design lines include Christian Lacroix, <i>The New York Times</i> and the Victoria &amp; Albert Museum. <br /><br />http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/11/chinoiserie-note-cards-in-architectural.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-4955187683038771032Thu, 31 Oct 2013 19:20:00 +00002013-10-31T23:07:18.270+01:00AW AnnouncementsCentral ParkManhattanwatercolorsCentral Park NYC Exhibition at Didier Aaron, Manhattan<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bQ_Fhx1Cn4o/UnKrNcZzkjI/AAAAAAAABaQ/7jzhmToQiXg/s1600/T+Magazine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bQ_Fhx1Cn4o/UnKrNcZzkjI/AAAAAAAABaQ/7jzhmToQiXg/s640/T+Magazine.jpg" width="553" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /><i>The New York Times T Magazine</i>, 24 October 2013 </td></tr></tbody></table><br />This past month has been a very busy time as we launched our latest book, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Central-Park-NYC-Architectural-View/dp/0847840794/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375714921&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=central+park+NYC" target="_blank">Central Park NYC</a>, </i>and prepared an exhibition of the watercolors illustrating that book at <a href="http://www.didieraaron.com/en/homepage/22/278-central-park-nyc.html" target="_blank">Didier Aaron, Inc.</a> in Manhattan.<br /><br />The eponymous exhibition opened on the 22nd with a private preview for the Woman's Committee of <a href="http://www.centralparknyc.org/" target="_blank">The Central Park Conservancy</a>, and it was an ebuillant evening and a true pleasure to meet so many dedicated benefactors of the park. New York itself was as vibrant as we've ever experienced it, and it was an enormous pleasure to spend even such a short time in our former home.<br /><br />The following evening was the exhibition's general opening, and shortly after the <i>New York Times T Magazine</i> <a href="http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/gallery-the-buildings-and-statuary-of-central-park-in-gorgeous-watercolor/?_r=1" target="_blank">published this online review</a>, with a gallery of six watercolors from ths show.<br /><br />The exhibition at Didier Aaron, Inc. runs until November the 8th. The gallery is open from 10 AM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday, tel. 212-988-5248.http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/10/our-central-park-nyc-watercolors-at.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-581878215586982029Sun, 15 Sep 2013 10:00:00 +00002014-01-06T13:04:02.297+01:00ArticlesAW AnnouncementsCentral ParkCentral Park NYC: "redefines the coffee table book"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrAdkdbQLns/UXMzE3FCbmI/AAAAAAAABYQ/_0UPBFOXyp0/s1600/CP+cover+axo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrAdkdbQLns/UXMzE3FCbmI/AAAAAAAABYQ/_0UPBFOXyp0/s400/CP+cover+axo.jpg" height="400" width="353" /></a></div>We are extremely pleased to announce that <a href="http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847840793" target="_blank">Rizzoli </a>published <b><i>Central Park NYC: An Architectural View</i></b> this past Tuesday, September 10, accompanied by a review in that same day's edition of the <i>New York Times.</i> <br /><br />From<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/nyregion/books-about-the-world-trade-center-and-the-traces-left.html?_r=2&amp;" target="_blank"> the <i>Times</i> review</a>: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div itemprop="articleBody">...in <b>“Central Park NYC: An Architectural View”</b> (Rizzoli, $75), the artist-authors Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams explore the park’s multitude of overlooked smaller structures, statues, benches and bridges.</div><div itemprop="articleBody"><br /></div><div itemprop="articleBody">Their original watercolors and photographs and revealing text redefine the coffee table book: More than just pretty pictures to be savored, these images will enrich and deepen the reader’s experience of the park. </div></blockquote>We are delighted that the <i>Times</i> recognized and lauded the underlying rigor of this book. We should also point out that beyond the park's structures and ornaments, our true focus is rather upon the park's design, divided into thirteen chapters that examine important features, such as the Mall, Bethesda Terrace and the Belvedere, and others devoted to design elements, such as the park's monuments, its bridges and arches, its water features, and its rustic structures.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XCJO5OHGQEk/Ujb0fgt8CGI/AAAAAAAABZo/FMh0YL6JKzc/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XCJO5OHGQEk/Ujb0fgt8CGI/AAAAAAAABZo/FMh0YL6JKzc/s400/photo.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br />To peek inside, you can visit this link to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Central-Park-NYC-Architectural-View/dp/0847840794/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375714921&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=central+park+NYC" target="_blank">the book's Amazon page</a>, where you can access an interactive pdf with a shocking number of the book's pages put online for your perusal. While pasting the link, we were delighted to see that <i><b>Central Park NYC</b> </i>has already reached the #1 position in Amazon's landscape architecture category, and horrified that only 2 copies remain in stock. Our thanks to everyone who made this possible!http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/09/central-park-nyc-redefines-coffee-table.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-1061665100449043777Thu, 12 Sep 2013 15:56:00 +00002013-09-12T18:53:54.077+02:00AW AnnouncementsMaintenant ouvert! Now open!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQuOThSUt3m8GejGiADvkpBlscZeI6ThTcljb7Y5x-C9esn0T3C" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQuOThSUt3m8GejGiADvkpBlscZeI6ThTcljb7Y5x-C9esn0T3C" /></a></div><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br />Well, we're deep into the second week of <i>la Rentr</i><i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">é</span>e</i>and this means that all of Paris's surfeit of <i>boulangeries</i>, <i>agences immobiliers </i>and <i>pressings</i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>the stalwart pillars of the French economy, such as it is<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>are now officially reopened for business. And so, dear readers, are we.<br /><br />We have been busy during our hiatus, mind you, and spent no appreciable time in traffic jams on the <i>autoroutes</i> or lying on cobble-strewn beaches, <i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">hélas, </span></i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">but this does however mean that we have much to report and to catch up on.<i>&nbsp;</i></span><br /><br /><div align="center" style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">We will be posting a number of announcements about developments in our work these next days, so please check back with us often during September.</span></i></b><i><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;"></span></i></div><br /><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">And the first order of business is to report to those patiently awaiting the reopening of the Architectural Notecards online store is, firstly, thank you for your patience!, and secondly, it is again online (click on the treillage pavilion at right) with a spanking new format, and hopefully without any fatal bugs. As those of you who deal with this sort of thing know, patience when upgrading a website is not only a virtue but a sorely taxed necessity.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">First thing you will notice is that each card is presented at full scale, so you will be able to see the majority of our watercolors online in great detail, making the boutique a virtual gallery as well.&nbsp; </span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">As an added bonus, the entire Architectural Watercolors website has been upgraded as well, with a responsive format that will make it fully accessible to those of you with tablets and smartphones. It is still a bit rough about the edges, so please bear with us as we polish and expand existing content in the coming weeks. The shop is fully integrated with the main site and is also responsive for those of you wedded to those clever little microwave emitters, which adds up to over half the page views in the US, so none too soon!&nbsp;</span><br /><br /><i><span lang="FR" style="font-family: &quot;Arial Unicode MS&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Alors, bienvenue!</span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: &quot;\0022Times New Roman\0022&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span></i><i><span lang="FR" style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i><i><span lang="FR" style="font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: FR; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/09/maintenant-ouvert-now-open.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-3643233429799141498Tue, 25 Jun 2013 19:42:00 +00002013-06-26T04:36:50.538+02:00acting badlyLouis XIVVersaillesSurveillance: Plus ça change...<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> <br /><div class="hbodytext0"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RpcWTRjcLMg/UcnxZC3ZD3I/AAAAAAAABZI/1F04ner63g4/s1600/532px-Louis_XIV_1666_Charles_le_Brun.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-RpcWTRjcLMg/UcnxZC3ZD3I/AAAAAAAABZI/1F04ner63g4/s400/532px-Louis_XIV_1666_Charles_le_Brun.jpg" width="353" /></a></span></i></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">Spies and spying are much in the news these days. Here we let the duc de Saint-Simon, the famed diarist who chronicled the court of the Sun King in innumerable volumes, take the floor:&nbsp; </span></i></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">Not only did Louis XIV expect everyone of distinction to be continually in attendance at Court, but he was quick to notice the absence of those of lesser degree; at his <i>lever, </i>his <i>coucher, </i>his meals, in the gardens of Versailles (the only place where courtiers could follow him), he would cast his eyes left and right</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">nothing escaped him; he saw everybody.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">If anyone at Court absented himself, he insisted on knowing the reason; those who appeared unexpectedly also had to proffer a satisfactory explanation. Anyone who seldom or never attended him was sure to incur his displeasure. If asked to bestow a favor on such persons, he would reply haughtily: "I do not know him." Of those who rarely presented themselves, he would say, "He is a man I never see"; and all these judgments were rendered without appeal.</span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">He always took great pains to learn what was going on in public venues</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">in society, in private houses, even family secrets</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">and he maintained an immense number of spies and informants. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">These were of all sorts; some had no idea that their reports were brought to him, though others knew. </span>There were others, again, who would write to him directly, through prescribed channels; and then there were others who were admitted by the backstairs, and who saw him in his private rooms. Many a man of all classes was ruined by these methods, often quite unjustly, without ever being able to discover the reason for it, </span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">for the King, once prejudiced, never altered his opinion, or so rarely that nothing could be more rare.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">The most cruel means by which the King was informed of current events</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>which continued for many years, before anyone had any inkling of it</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>was by reading opened letters. The swiftness and dexterity with which they were opened defies all credulity. He saw extracts from all correspondence which the chiefs of the post office, and the minister who governed it, thought that he should read; entire letters, too, were sent to him, when their contents seemed to justify the sending. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">&nbsp;</span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">Thus the chiefs of the post</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>nay, the principal clerks</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>were in a position to propose what they pleased and attack whom they pleased. A word of contempt against the King or the government</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>a joke, a detached phrase</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>was enough. It is incredible how many people, justly or unjustly, were ruined</span><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Times New Roman&quot;;">—</span>always without resource, without trial, and without knowing why. The secret was impenetrable; for nothing ever cost the King less than profound silence and dissimulation.</span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"></span></div><div class="hbodytext0"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/> </w:WordDocument></xml><![endif]--> </div><div class="hbodytext0"><br /></div><div class="hbodytext0"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;">History repeating...&nbsp;</span></i> <span style="font-family: &quot;Futura Bk BT&quot;;"></span></div>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/06/surveillance-plus-ca-change.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5047382600176843307.post-4924224768395468201Sun, 21 Apr 2013 01:03:00 +00002013-09-12T18:33:02.250+02:00AW AnnouncementsCentral ParkwatercolorsWe're back with a book: CENTRAL PARK NYC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrAdkdbQLns/UXMzE3FCbmI/AAAAAAAABYM/tGb7B4nipxE/s1600/CP+cover+axo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XrAdkdbQLns/UXMzE3FCbmI/AAAAAAAABYM/tGb7B4nipxE/s640/CP+cover+axo.jpg" width="563" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We're back, and we've returned with a book—well for now, at least the publication date for a book. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We are delighted to announce that our publisher, Rizzoli International Publications, will publish <a href="http://www.rizzoliusa.com/book.php?isbn=9780847840793" target="_blank"><i>Central Park NYC: An Architectural View</i> </a>in late September of this year. <i>Central Park</i> will be a large-format hardcover—a hefty 208 pages and 10 by 12 inches—with 61 of our own watercolors <i>(good Lord, have we really painted that many?)</i>, augmented by 60 color and 55 black-and-white illustrations.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The volume surveys the architecture and history of Central Park, from its inception to the present day. Over the course of thirteen chapters, we examine the constituent elements of the park, the park's evolution, and the buildings, sculptures and ornaments that enrich this original template, crafted by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, for what became America's Greensward Revolution. </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We are extremely proud of this book, our eighth, and know that it has much that is new to say about the how and the why of the creation of Central Park. An outgrowth of our exhibiton at Didier Aaron, Inc. celebrating the 150<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the creation of Central Park, the book is also copiously illustrated with contemporary photography and archival documents and photographs.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We have paid particular attention to the archival photo selection, wishing to surprise by "the shock of the old," as it were. Likewise, contemporary photographs come from a variety of photographers who have captured the park in stunning moments of beauty.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Lt5bnZyUpc/UXM1GyoHvcI/AAAAAAAABYY/X4HYMMpLu0E/s1600/ParkMakers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--Lt5bnZyUpc/UXM1GyoHvcI/AAAAAAAABYY/X4HYMMpLu0E/s400/ParkMakers.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><i>The men who built Central Park, photographed on Willowdell Arch in 1862.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><i>&nbsp;From left: comptroller Andrew H. Green, engineer George E. Waring,&nbsp;</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><i>architect Calvert Vaux, gardener Ignaz Pilat, designer Jacob Wrey Mould,&nbsp;</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;"><i>and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted</i>.&nbsp; </div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">We will be mounting an exhibition of the watercolors that illustrate the book at Didier Aaron, Inc. in late October and early November of this year, and will post with exhibition dates closer to the time of publication.&nbsp;</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">For now, we simply wanted to announce that—after a long and productive hiatus, for which we still have several announcements before us to make—we have again returned to posting at <i>NOTED</i>, and that <i>Central Park NYC </i>is well on its way to publication—<i>at last! </i></div>http://architecturalwatercolors.blogspot.com/2013/04/were-back-and-with-book-central-park-nyc.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Andrew Zega and Bernd H. Dams)4